I think that the pandemic has given us the opportunity
to actually build back differently,
and there's a huge difference between building back
differently and building back better.
In pursuing the idea of building back differently,
we have to ask the question,
we build back differently on what basis?
And I'm suggesting that in considering the idea
of building back differently,
we base our discussions on the idea of care.
And I see care as being undertaken in two ways.
One, is the idea of caring for
and this caring for often is linked to ideas
of the care economy,
i.e. those provided by domestic workers,
childminders
and those in the caring professions for the elderly.
And this idea of caring for, in my view,
has become commodified.
By which I mean,
they are now part of financial transactions.
So if one assumes a scenario where there is no exploitation,
say in wages or in working conditions,
one can argue that one has fulfilled one's contract
in terms of caring for.
However, I'm trying to argue
that there is something beyond caring for,
and this means caring about.
And caring about means the understanding of the other,
it's understanding the kind of experiences faced by others
and one of therefore developing compassion and solidarity.
And when I talk about the other, I'm referring to the other
through a whole range of differences.
Be they race,
ethnicity,
caste,
class,
gender,
sexuality
or occupation and the like.
The idea of caring about
is something that has been inculcated in me
whilst I was growing up,
not through compulsion,
but through the idea of demonstration
by my late parents.
Hence the idea of caring about
is part of my environmental DNA,
if you'd like to call it that
and my politics as a result,
is about valuing others,
most importantly for who they are
as another human being
and not by the work that they do
or the manner in which society has ranked them.
And this ethics of caring about
has in the space of the education that I offer
at the London School of Economics and Political Science
built in not only caring about my students,
but also inculcating in them,
the idea of caring about
and in doing so,
my aim is to bring about ways of thinking differently.
my aim is to bring about ways of thinking differently,
and hence the idea of building back differently
has its foundations.
I have been researching housing since the early 1980s
and over the last five years or so,
have been researching internal migration
in relation to construction workers.
The migrant workers that I researched in Chennai
came from other states in India,
mostly from the Eastern seaboard,
and they lived in camps on the construction site
or close by.
These were migrant construction workers
working in large scale construction projects,
such as infrastructure,
but also upmarket housing enclaves,
as well as shopping malls
and the construction of buildings for commercial purposes,
including industry, and it struck me that
construction underpins human existence,
and all the social relationships and interactions
we speak about take place
largely within the built environment.
And these workers are hardly recognised
in the contribution that they make.
Unlike a film, and one watches film credits at the end,
everyone who was associated with the film
in whatever way possible, no matter how small,
is actually named in these credits,
but in construction, one can find a plaque
on a building that spells out the name of the architect
and perhaps the structural consultants
or the landscape architect,
and the who people actually contributed to construction
are a mirage, as far as that is concerned.
These workers are exploited,
in relation to the notion of caring for,
I mean, in relation to their conditions of work,
wages, the lack of overtime payment
and their housing conditions are quite poor,
lacking basic access to water and sanitation.
There are a number of laws and regulations in India,
to cover migrant construction workers,
their working conditions as well as their living conditions.
But these are ignored with impunity,
largely due to the nexus between the state
and the financial capital that developers bring with them.
More recently moves are afoot
in terms of watering down these regulations
and making them into codes,
which are more likely to be based on
the notion of a voluntary adoption
rather than requirement through law.
So there is an erosion in the sphere of caring for
amongst the migrant workers that I researched,
but there is also a lack of the notion of caring about
and what I mean by caring about, I'm talking about,
for example, knowing the construction worker
by his or her name,
having some understanding of the family circumstances,
and also of considering them as human beings,
and extending some sense of compassion to their existence.
Instead, these workers are treated as commodities,
to be hired and then dismissed when no longer needed.
So what does building back differently
say in relation to this research of mine
on migrant construction workers?
Definitely it speaks to the need to
remove forms of exploitation
and extraction of labour
that currently exists,
but it also requires us to think about valuing their work
beyond the financial transactions
included in the idea of wages.
So building back differently would actually mean
rethinking the relationships
between architects,
developers, engineers and the workers
who they employ to bring their ideas to fruition.
I'd like to conclude by suggesting
things that we as individuals could do,
and one of the biggest resources in the idea of caring about
is one of time.
Time to enquire, time to listen,
time to engage in meaningful conversations. And in doing so,
perhaps building in time for understanding
and for compassion, and then perhaps thinking about
whether it's time to act.
In order to do this, each and every one of us
has to carve out time
in relation to our interactions with others
and in doing so, reclaim the act of caring about.
For me, this is a fundamental starting point
and it's something that we have full control over.
We could also consider sharing our efforts
and experiences of caring about with others and who knows
what the ripple effects of such sharing might be?